As you can see the day of surfing pipeline and being on top of the surf game are long gone, with new innovative equipment, never before seen locations and an ever growing risk of injury, tow-in surfing is today’s most extreme water based sport.
Compared to regular 5 to 10 feet waves tow-in surfers, surf on waves that are 50 plus, so obviously there going to need more developed equipment. The basic board remains the same with the addition of foot hold or binding securing the rider to the board. Another addition is a life jacket which is the most vital. When a surfer wipes out in this environment it is not uncommon for them to be submerged for 2 to 3 minutes or even knocked unconscious. These two things combined with a jet ski and the world’s largest waves of the coast make this sport possible.
But not just any coast will do. The world has millions of miles of coast line with breaking waves rolling in but only a handful of theses location produce waves big enough to require a tow-in. these locations spread from :
Mavericks in Cali....
...to Wamea bay in Hawaii.
The biggest and boldest of theses breaks in a long way off of the North shore of oahu. This is a spot called peahi better known as jaws.
It is here in the middle of the ocean that 70 and 80 feet waves raise from the depths of the pacific. The danger of being pushed deep exists here however this is not always the case.
Off the cost of Tahiti is a post called teaahupo which is a huge wave that dumps millions of gallons of water onto a razor sharp reef only a few feet deep, which leads me o my next point….
The most prominent injury in the sport is broken bones due to the speed and height of these waves. The rider is also quite shaken up from being in the washing machine type atmosphere.
the worst injuries come from people hitting the reef at shallow breaks like teahapo, resulting in potentially devastating traumatic injuries.
It’s clear that these surfers, tow-in surfers, know no limits and live their lives searching for the next biggest wave.
With ever changing technology making equipment better, the ever changing gorgeous locations its no wonder that theses surfers will risk injury and death to better there big wave surf game.
web pages that will feed your hunger for tow-in surfing knowledge :
http://www.billabongodyssey.com : movie clips, pictures and more !
2. http://www.surfline.com : check out the local surf forecast !
3. http://www.towsurfer.com : Dedicated to extreme surfing and those who dare !
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